Countdown delayed...

Well, I am still pregnant.

Today, Wednesday, 11/21/2007, is my due date. Or at least, we're a little over 3 hours into my due date. Couldn't sleep, was having some heartburn, so got up to read Dooce and also post an update. :)

Sunday during the day I briefly wondered, while in the "throne room", if what I had, 'er, just "done" was pee or squirt a little bit of amniotic fluid out. I found out last week that if I break my water, I have to go in to the hospital first thing... no waiting for contractions to start. I'll need to be on IV antibiotics for strep-B germs "down there", to keep them from hurting our son. Once my water breaks, he's no longer protected from them in the womb. :P

Well, as I said, I couldn't tell whether I'd just peed or had a little amniotic fluid leak out while on the throne. Just wasn't quite sure. Nothing more came out when I left the throne room, so decided to let it go for now. I.E., I wasn't dribbling anything more out while in a non-peeing mode, so...

But this did spook me enough to finish up packing at least my bags for the hospital trip. I need to wash a few more things before the baby's bags are packed. Sigh. Although really, all I probably need to take to the hospital for him is going to be the car seat, the clothes he will wear home, and a blanket. I think the hospital will take care of everything else.

Sunday night I took Tylenol PM as I had a 1pm appointment Monday with my ObGyn, and was afraid, if I didn't have help falling asleep, that when I finally did fall asleep, I wouldn't get up until WELL AFTER MY APPOINTMENT WAS OVER. This was a valid fear... some days I don't drag my ass out of bed until 2pm. I'd blame pregger exhaustion, but honestly, left to my own devices, I become VERY nocturnal.

The dogs are really confused about their varying mealtimes. Sometimes their breakfast is at 2 or 2:30pm, and on days I have "early" appointments, their breakfast could be 9 or 10am. Thankfully, they are fairly flexible dogs. Well, they've had to be, living with two computer geeks. :)

Well, anyway, Sunday night/Monday morning, I kept waking up having cramps. They felt like regular ol' menstrual cramps. Kinda freaked me out. They weren't anything horrifically painful, and so while lying there, decided, "screw it, I'm going to get some more sleep", and passed back out. When it started to get light, I got up, let the dogs out, peed, and drank some water. The water seemed to help, whereupon I wasn't having any cramps that I could sense. My tummy would go hard like a basketball occasionally, but afterwards it would relax. And it wasn't hurting. And I didn't notice that it was hard unless I put my hand on it to check it.

So once again, decided upon more sleep.

Got up finally. Fed dogs. Got cleaned up. Grabbed my 2 bags for the hospital and -- just in case -- shoved them into my trunk. If it turned out my ObGyn said that my water HAD broken, or that I WAS in labor, or WAS dilated, I wanted to be able to head straight for the hospital.

Just to make matters interesting, that Monday morning I was constipated and then, nauseated. And then I had the runs. Hmmm. Wondered once more if maybe Monday was going to be our son's birthday, considering my body was acting really weird.

Well, all my fears were for naught. Per my ObGyn:
1. My water hadn't broken.
2. I wasn't dilated.
3. The contractions were probably just "practice" contractions for the real thing.

My son is still very much NOT ready to leave his nice, warm, wet abode. He likes it in there. My nausea was probably due to the fact that I was hungry, even IF I didn't feel any hunger.

So... I drove to Longs, picked up a bunch of travel bottles of stuff that I might need at the hospital, drove to McD's to have food that is bad for me but makes me feel better, and then crawled home.

And was pretty much done for the day, LOL!

I've since wondered if the Tylenol PM made the cramps come on, due to perhaps the Tylenol PM making me a little dehydrated. Either that, or it was just time for practice cramps.

Pregnancy is just a totally weird experience.

Talked to a friend today who told me that when she had her 2nd baby, she was in labor and DIDN'T KNOW IT. She was having menstrual-like cramps that she was able to easily deal with. She went into the hospital to get checked out, and found out she was already 4 centimeters dilated! Whereupon, it was time to send her to the delivery room.

I'm not sure if I'll have the same experience. My Mom had menstrual cramps so bad that she had to take codeine or other high-powered meds in order to be able to function. And one time, she had a miscarriage w/o even realizing she was pregnant... and almost died from blood loss. She'd been lying down, doped up on codeine as the pain was exactly like her normal menstrual cramps... i.e., she thought she was having a period, and not a miscarriage. And unknown to her, she was slowly bleeding to death. Her first husband pulled back the blanket to discover that fact. Almost didn't make it to the hospital in time to stop the bleeding.

I had bad cramps as a teenager. Had to use heavy meds at first. Then figured out I could take the worst of the edge off the pain with a little more Advil than the recommended dosage. And it was all good.

After I was on the pill for a while, my periods got much milder. Still needed Advil to cope, but wasn't anything at all as painful as when I was a teenager.

So, I'm a little confused as to what to expect now as far as levels of pain when I first start REAL contractions.

ObGyn told me that when I was having real contractions, I'd know. But my friend didn't know. But then again, if I start having menstrual-like pain that makes me flash back to being a teenager, I think that will be a REALLY GOOD CLUE, LOL!

As I said, being pregnant is a really weird experience!

This whole thing has taught me to have alot more respect for mothers and fathers in general. Their role in life isn't an easy one. They have both the worries of screwing up their kid after the kid is born, as well as the whole physical problems during the pregnancy. Although, in general, the man mostly just has psychological discomfort during his wife's pregnancy... brought on by his wife driving him crazy due to her physical discomfort. ;)

I've tried to not drive my husband too crazy during my pregnancy. There are a few things I wish he'd do differently now that I'm close to the end of the pregnancy. I'm sure there's stuff he wishes I'd do differently... pregnancy or no pregnancy, LOL! It's a challenge to try not to make things harder than they already are.

Anyway, as I said, baby's not ready to move out of his waterlogged apartment yet. So, will keep you all posted when that changes. :)